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Costume Update 32: Lathe Work
In this video I made metal gauntlet darts, metal toe spikes, and wooden knee darts.
Gauntlet Darts:
What you need to make the darts:
- Metal Rod at least 3mm in diameter (3 ft from Home Depot is like $4)
-- If you can find a 3mm diameter rod you will save yourself SO MUCH TIME
-- I just picked up this rod from home depot
- A lathe (Quite a bit of $$, borrow one if you can or buy one they are awesome!)
- Hacksaw
- Sand Paper (grits: 220, 500, 600, 1200)
- A caliper tool to easily measure diameters
- Sharpie for making marks
Step 1: Cut Rod to length
-- I found that cutting the rod to double length worked well and saved the rod from flexing as much, this also allowed me to make two darts at once
-- Making 2 at once could save some of the material as you have to lose some to the drill chuck
Step 2: Add tip to both sides
-- I added a 30 degree tip to both sides (on both lenghts) so I wouldn't have to readjust the lathe bit
-- The tip is overall 5mm long, the actual point is ~2.8mm long and the last 2 mm can be used to add the details
Step 3: Adding the tip accents
-- The details were done at 3mm and 4mm from the tip and were cut into the diameter 0.2mm
-- This part is up to you really it would have been nice if I could have found a nice tap so I could have added threads instead
Step 4: Cut out the valley that is 1.2mm in diameter (mine is probably closer to 1.5mm)
-- Again using the sharpie mark back from the 5mm dart tip another 7mm (it should be 12mm from the tip)
-- The lathe made short work of this, make sure you don't bring the piece too far out from the chuck or you run the risk of bending the part and having to toss it
Step 5. Polish the dart
-- Using progressively finer sand paper polish up the dart
Step 6: Unchuck the dart flip it around and do it again, starting with step 3
Step 7: Sanding
-- I started with 120 then stepped through going 220, 400, to 500
Step 8: Admire your work.
Toe Spikes:
What you need to make the darts:
- Aluminum Rod at least 12mm in diameter (3 ft from Home Depot is like $4)
-- I just picked up this rod from home depot
- Aluminum bar for the plate
- Drill and 2.5mm drill bit
- A lathe (Quite a bit of $$, borrow one if you can or buy one they are awesome!)
- Hacksaw
- Homemade Miter box to allow a 37 degree cut
- Sand Paper (grits: 220, 500, 600, 1200)
- A caliper tool to easily measure diameters
- Sharpie for making marks
- Propane Torch
- Aluminum welding rod (Home Depot 2 rods, $4)
- Metallic paint if you want to paint them after
- Protractor
- Vice
- Needle nose pliers
Step 1: Cut spike to proper size
-- Bring down the diameter to 12mm (per template)
-- Add a 14 degree tip on the piece
-- My lathe was not optimal for this there was almost 25mm of extra that I had to cut off every time so I could chuck the spike appropriately
-- I could have probably worked it out better and saved some aluminum, but ohh well
Step 2: Add the tip hole
-- The overall diameter of the tip should be ~3.5mm
-- Using the tail stock of the lathe I marked the center of the tip
-- Using a drill and steady hand I drilled out the tip
Step 3: Cut to mount to metal bard
-- I had to make a custom miter box to add the 37 degree cut to the rear portion of the dart
--- This was done with 3 paint stirers, 2 ground stakes, a protractor, and some glue
--- 3 paint stirers work out to be about 12mm wide (a little less actually which is good)
-- Place them in the center of the stakes smash them together in the vice
--- add the 37 degree cut
-- Place the spike into your box, you should have already cut the guide slots at an angle and the spike should be a very snug fit, as long as the long the front and rear of the spike up it will turn out great
-- Use the hack saw and cut through the dart
Step 4: Shaping the metal bar
-- Use RafalFett's templates to determine length and width of the bar, cut and bend appropriately
-- 60 degree bends
Step 5: Weld the toe spikes to the metal bard
-- I used a small propane torch I had heated the bar and the spike until the aluminum welding rod would melt (Without the torch's help)
-- I held the bar still in the vice
-- Keeping the spike in place can be difficult, I wish I had an alligator clip to sacrifice to the heat and hold it still
-- I used needle nose pliers to move the spike around
Step 6. Add rear holes to mount the spikes to the boots
Step 7: Optional Paint the pieces
Step 8: Admire your work
The Knee darts:
Pretty much everything above except these will definitely need to be painted, and I seriously just used an old flag pole I had laying around.